


Truce (now your life is free)

by sams_youngblood



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Demon Dean, Episode AU: s10e03 Soul Survivor, Episode: s11e17 Red Meat, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Sam, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mark of Cain, Nightmares, Sam Hallucinates, Sam has Nightmares, Self-Hatred, Songfic, Torture, Tortured Sam, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:45:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sams_youngblood/pseuds/sams_youngblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"You will die, but now your life is free"</em><br/>There's a new fixture in his nightmares, darker and warmer and greener than his old ones. </p>
<p>Title from the Twenty One Pilots song Truce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truce (now your life is free)

"Dean... Dean!"

He's rasping out Dean's name like a final prayer, writhing on the grey concrete in incurable agony. Blood poured from his stomach, spreading in a pool around him like a scarlet halo. The dungeon floor sucked the warmth from his bones, the dimness of the room creeping into the corners of his blurring vision. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his shaking sides, tendons tensing and bulging as he strained to regulate his soaring heart rate. Every breath, every thought burned in scalding waves, sending shivers of white-hot agony up and down his prone frame as he gasped for air. His mind wasn't on the pain, however - it was on his brother.

_where is he where is he - oh wait_

"Dean..."

Suddenly, there he was again, yanking the pseudo-shelves back and entering the room with long bowed strides. Nearly lifeless green eyes, split knuckles, slumped and heavy shoulders, bloody hands. For a split second, Sam almost thinks it's his Dean, finally, oh _thank God_ \- until the man standing over him blinks and once again, black floods into green like a storm crashing over land, obliterating any compassion or sanity that still remained after all those years. Dean had lost his fight, just as Sam had lost his so long ago; Dean's against an evil as old as the beginning (the very definition of _corruption_ ), Sam's against the one who fell from heaven because of twisted grace, wings charred and stained with sin sprouted by that ancient evil.

"Dean, hey, please..."

_how did i get here why is he doing this what have i don-_

His train of thought was derailed by another burning lance ripping through the left side of his abdomen, the inflamed flesh and tacky blood ravaged by the First Blade serving as reminders of what the older Winchester had done to him (the darkness Sam could have saved him from, should have saved him from, why didn't he _save him?_ ).

The corrupted soul that was his brother smirked at Sam's obvious pain, relishing in his masterful ruination of both mind and body. It was like standing in the umbra of a solar eclipse; a steadfast blaze of strength and stubbornness extinguished by all-powerful oblivion, a vice clamping its jaws upon the juicy flesh of _good_ and crushing it, ripping it apart, leaving nothing but a ghostly whisper of what once was. He was breaking Sam Winchester, and holy _hell_ did it feel good. He lifted a giant booted foot and slammed it down on Sam's still-bleeding stab wound with a feral grin, prompting a breathy, drawn-out moan of pain from the man he once cared so damn much about. Hearing that, Dean - if you could really still call him that - lessened the pressure, his smirk dropping slightly. A simple moan wasn't what he wanted to hear. Sam was supposed to be screaming, begging, pleading, and all he was doing was freaking _whimpering_. He wanted, needed, craved...

And there it was again. Sam could see, from his vantage point on the cold hard ground (not six feet under it, not yet), the darkness take over completely: the way Dean's form stiffened, his features stilled, his stocky shoulders pulled back, his spine straightened, his mouth hardened into a firm line. Now, at this point the younger Winchester wasn't too sure of anything, but he knew that whatever was left of his beloved brother was losing its battle against the Mark of Cain, being driven deeper into the murky depths of his soul. Being crushed out of existence by something so foreign, yet so familiar. So _right._ But at what price?

Sam?

Sam held still, holding his breath through spasms of heat (or was it cold?), anticipation gripping him with a force so strong his heart skipped a few beats. He stared intensely at his brother's face, willing him to do something - anything - other than look at him like _that_ , careless and stoney and calculating and bloodthirsty and _gone._

_not dean it can't be dean_

He could take monsters, he could take pain and being alone and helpless; for God’s sake, he could take the devil. But he couldn't bear his brother looking hungrily at him through half-lidded pleasure-blown obsidian eyes, couldn’t stand having his worst nightmare play out like intricate clockwork before his tired eyes.

_i was supposed to save you we were supposed to keep each other human oh god_ _i'm so sorry dean_

Sweat began to bead on his temples and in the crevices of his neck and collarbones, on the curve of his upper lip. His mouth was open in a silent panting plea, his once brilliant hazel eyes now glazed with fear and pain and _please_  and  _why?_

He took a deep, shuddering breath, uncurled his quivering fists, closed his foggy eyes, thought about his brother (the real Dean, the one who wouldn't do this, wouldn't want this, doesn't he want this?) one last blissful time, and let go.

_i’m so sorry_

And then he woke up to darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this website more than life; thank you all for existing, writing, and reading. Kudos and reviews mean the world to me! <3


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